It certainly doesn’t but it’s great book. What I tried to convey is that I prefer publishers that themselves don’t have an agenda that would have seen Starship Troopers go unpublished. People who have racists and fascists opinions still produce great works (Lovecraft comes to mind in addition to Heinlein).
That’s a pretty blatant history bias. There are a lot of voices out there not allowed to bubble to the top. Can’t you imagine a world where other, non-facist voices were invited to be heard, and turned out to have just as good, if not better, things to share? If you’re given a choice between a world without Lovecraft or a world without fascism, and you chose to keep the fascism so you could keep the Lovecraft, that’s the very definition of privilege. For some that would be an existential choice.
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Yet another thing that I didn’t even know was a thing. Super.
As if comics don’t have enough of a problem being accepted as a legitimate art form. These assholes have to exist. Where’s FineArtGate?
It depends on how many white supremacists out there are willing to buy crappy comics. There are enough to help elect a crappy President, so there just might be enough for this niche market to succeed. Ugh.
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This dude is snail poop. He’s only interested in making money through controversy. That’s why he went after Scalzi. The more attention paid to him, the worse he gets. Let him and his ilk waste away in obscurity.
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but it’s an open question as to whether it amounted to a media stunt or a sustainable market for reactionary comics.
Publicity stunt. Making reactionary comics isn’t new. But you can barely making a living making GOOD indie comics with great art and stories. Comics who exist as a novelty to piss off a certain group simply won’t have longevity. You MIGHT be able to sustain a couple series like that IF it also has SOME merit like a decent art and story and/or a character design that is interesting. But more than likely you end up with something like a Punisher clone that says “fag” and “libertard” a lot.
Oooo… Edgy. !980 something Faust called. They want you to move our of your moms basement and get a life.
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You’re talking about Dark Horse. It exists.
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I know. Still, I mostly shop on Comixology because it is easy and relatively inexpensive (during the sales). Shipping comics overseas becomes pretty costly fast. Comixology does have a pretty good selection in my opinion (awful review system though). And then there’s Bittorent if that fails.
Not to me, especially when it comes to comics? I would posit that there is a multitude of opinions on that matter.
At this point in life I more look to being entertained, being exposed to thought provoking and foreign ideas and being moved emotionally. I think comics are a pretty shitty format to discuss complex issues anyway.
That idea that comic (or art in general) can be “politicly neutral” is really strange and wrong to me.
Everything has a political context and everything have to stand on some basic political concept. Most of the time neutral or non-partisan is just acceptation of the current Statu Quo.
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Most White Supremacists don’t seem to be much into reading. Sure this is a comic book, but it’s still a book. They may also struggle to find advertisers. I will be shocked if this label lasts two years.
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Like Gamergate, there seems to be a strong layer here of men feeling a creeping dread that historically-male-targeted adolescent power fantasies are going to be outlawed. They are a powerful drug, I used to play army man, ninja turtles and X-men* on the playground, and it was incredibly intoxicating. I still want that feeling, and still often illustrate these fantasies myself. The the idea that somehow the FBI, or some SJW equivalent is going to put power fantasies on a drug schedule and outlaw it.
This is, of course, crazy. There’s never been a better time to be a fan of rip-roaring action adventure and the idea that critiquing specific power fantasies, or asking that alternate stories ALSO be respected and mainstreamed is an existential threat to the genre is a vast underestimation of the coefficient of friction on that particular slope. Conan is fucking problematic. I love Frazetta as much as the next guy, but sheesh, the conversations need to be had. It’s funny that it is somewhat of a microcosm of conservatism itself, the idea that this thing that is celebrated for being POWERFUL and NATURAL is also treated as it is were terribly fragile and vulnerable.
Where it gets downright depressing is where the backlash doubles down on the worst aspects of power fantasies, and goes hyper-fascist, racist and misogynistic. There are good arguments for power fantasies somewhere, but we’ll never hear it over the bleating of these truly fucking gross assholes and those arguments are made all time, but they’re not coming from these d-bags.
*Ironically, some very SJW stuff “hidden” in those ones…
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Hating stuff isn’t a really substitutable editorial strategy. Most publishers stuff do stuff they LIKE and want more and make a difference. Not because they hate things and people and want more of the same old shit.
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Uh… huh…
“Maus” is probably an overused touchstone of comics handling complex issues wonderfully, but of course there are others. And I’m betting many more that I’ve never even heard of.
Is it possible you are reading the wrong comics?
Yes, but they also seem to have a lot of kids. If they have the opportunity to purchase pap that pushes their ideology to their offspring over a comic with messages of peace and understanding, I can be pretty sure where they will put their money.
Which “kiddie books” are they going to buy, given the option?
I’m still not sold that this will last; I hope that it folds like a cheap lawn chair. But the seeds are there, and this might just be the right manure to help them grow.
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So… this “Gun Ghoul”. Besides a terrible name… I’m assuming someone said “I like Punisher and Ghostrider, let’s mash 'em up!” ?
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Hard to say. I would say that even some books can be pretty close to apolitical. What is the political message of Malus Darkblade (or other pulpy Sword and sorcery books)? Might makes right? Demons suck? They certainly are not some complex allegory about 20’s Southern racism.
However, that is not wha I meant. When I was growing up, a nearby bookshop was run by a real OG anarchist. He put Das kapital next to Mein kampf, Paladin books publications next to ANTIFA and Animal Liberation Front tactics leaflets etc. My hope is simply that I would prefer there be a bunch of publishers that let me choose like that.
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Guys. Guys! You’ve got it all wrong.
ComicsGate is just about ethics in comics journalism.
/s
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Man, I love Maus, but I have a weird feeling in the back of my mind about representing political and social groups as separate species. I know it’s as old a Aesop, and everyone knows instinctually that it’s metaphorical, but something about it…makes me want to have more conversations, so I guess that’s good. I actually have an outline for a comic that explores this in a framework of missionary hallucinating about mushrooms and bees, but yeah, that’s on the to-do list of death somewhere out there… (off topic, but I’d be MORE than happy to make a new thread if this rabbit hole looks good to anyone!)
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Nothing wrong with Maus, but I still defend that opinion. The effort and cost to create the images and lackluster information density still make written word (enhanced with pictures and diagrams, of course) much superior.
I also liked this (don’t how it has aged):
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If Lovecraft was publishing in 2018 I like to think he’d have a harder time publishing his more overtly racist stories. And I frankly don’t see that as a problem.
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I’ve no problem with power fantasies that punch up.
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Could be, could also not be. I’m certainly not against non-fascist voices “being invited to be heard”. Yet I also don’t think this is an either or type question. I don’t think publishing Lovecraftian comics precludes publishing Maus.
That is about the definition of false dichotomy. Purging ideologically impure artists hasn’t created a perfect world when tried. I don’t think it ever will.
